I hear there were some eyebrows raised in dairy farming circles by a line in Kerry Co-op’s annual report.

Under the section about the co-op’s strategy committee there was a note outlining that “Seamus Crawford was removed from the committee and replaced with James Tangney and Patrick Hanafin”. The record shows that Crawford, who spoke at milk price protests in Charleville in June 2023, only attended one of the committee’s six meetings last year.

There was also a €740,000 jump in legal and consultation fees at the co-op, which hired Jim Woulfe as an “independent external adviser” last year. The co-op has been without a CEO since December 2022.

Speaking of expenses, operating costs were €3.3m, yet it only accounted for under €2.2m of them in its breakdown of “major items” leaving no details for a third of the year’s spending.